When Gov. Scott Walker and his allies stripped bargaining rights from most public employees, they saidworkers no longer needed union protection from overreaching bosses. Now that they’ve stripped away rights, they are trying to literally strip the clothes off state employees.

On Jan. 5, a long-time employee of Lincoln Hills Schools was ordered by his supervisor to remove his green shirt bearing an AFSCME logo – even though Lincoln Hills has no dress code prohibiting the wearing of any type of clothing except items that feature messages about drugs, alcohol or sex.

When the worker, Ron McAllister, refused to remove his t-shirt, he was sent home. In a phone conversation with union representative Troy Bauch, Lincoln Hills Superintendent Paul Westerhaus said that from now on, any worker wearing a union shirt will be told to remove the garment. If the employee refuses, he or she may be disciplined.

As of mid-day Friday, employees had not been provided any written copy of this new, unconstitutional edict, which Westerhaus said came from his superiors in Madison.

On Jan. 6, McAllister came to work in union garb and was again ordered to remove his union clothing, which involved multiple layers down to his underwear. After putting him through an embarrassing wringer, supervisors relented and said McAllister could stay for the day.

“These guys think they can push people around over things that have nothing to do with how we work. It’s degrading. It shows a complete lack of respect. We’re not going to let them get away with it,” said McAllister, president of Wisconsin State Employees Union Local 6.

Bauch said disciplining workers over the color of their shirt shows just how far the Walker administration will go to try to intimidate workers. “They are sitting around thinking of ways to bully people and it’s undermining morale, efficiency and safety in the workplace,” he said.

WSEU Executive Director Marty Beil said the union is not going to stand idly by and watch good workers bullied by Walker’s bureaucrats. “This is an assault on a very basic freedom and we do not acquiesce to giving up our freedom to petty tyrants,” Beil said.

Union members and supporters will hold an informational picket to show support for McAllister and all who value their rights at NOON on Monday, Jan. 9, at the Lincoln Hills front gate, W4380 Copper Lake Road, Irma.

I do believe that any employer has a right to set the standards for proper dress.

After all they are the ones writing the pay check, not the union.

The National Institutes of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins.The new study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

You're right. However, any large employer should have a clearly defined dress code if they expect people to follow it. It should be documented in the employee handbook. Heck, I think even the Tomahawk Leader has a defined dress code.

Also, since it's not a private company, there are additional restrictions. For example, it wouldn't be right, or legal, for them to define that only clothing supporting one religion, or political party, etc. can be allowed. If they are going to take the stand they apparently are, they need to update their policies to clearly state, no clothing, with any political or organization affiliation will be allowed.

"If they are going to take the stand they apparently are, they need to update their policies to clearly state, no clothing, with any political or organization affiliation will be allowed."

Given that the Irma facility is a jail of sorts who says they don't already have an employee dress code, something that is not mentioned in that propaganda that the Leader chose to repeat without checking. My guess is that they do have a policy in effect.

Speaking of employee handbooks that reminds me of the time I was one of eight department heads in a major store that decided we needed to produce an employee handbook. As we were going through the chapters we came to sexual harrassment part of the handbook. One department head asked if we really had a problem here with sexual harrassment. And I said "For Sure We Do" ......there just isn't enough of it !!!

Given that the Irma facility is a jail of sorts who says they don't already have an employee dress code, something that is not mentioned in that propaganda that the Leader chose to repeat without checking. My guess is that they do have a policy in effect.

Uh...

even though Lincoln Hills has no dress code prohibiting the wearing of any type of clothing except items that feature messages about drugs, alcohol or sex.

You might want to read the whole story before you start ripping into the paper...

Sounds to me like both of these people (Mcallister and his unnamed supervisor) are quite petty. First off if come to work with your union name on your underwear you offically qualify for "freek" status. Secondly, if you make a worker remove a t-shirt without a dress code that supports your decision you qualify for "jerk mico-management boss" status.

Its clear these two have a personal vendeda and one of them was sucessfull in recruting the local paper into this retarded dualling of dunce caps. The local paper was defunct in preservation of bias when reporting this, unless of course this item appears in the "opinon" section of the paper, so the jurys still out on that.

The sad truth of the matter is that this facility was almost shut down last year. This sophmoric behavior of its staff will do nothing to help keep it open in the future. The local paper deciding to make a witch hunt out of a employee with an agenda will make matters even worse in that regard.

Oh man, I need to reply. I thought the Leader wrote this piece of idiocy. Then i read this: "NEWS ITEM email arrived Friday, Jan. 6 with AFSCME (Wisconsin State Employees Union) logo." I apologize for the previous unbiased comment I directed at the paper. However, why in the world is this clear piece of union propaganda being published in the paper? Why not do you own story and your own interviews to substantiate or discredit the claims of one-side of a two-sided argument? This is not journalism, this is the reprinting of a diatribe created by a vindictive group that would easily lie to promote thier agenda. To represent this as a news item is irresponible to say the least. Junk like this is what the internet is for, it has no business in a newspaper.

You'll see it here, because, as mentioned above, the Leader was curious about our reaction and discussion. Also, it would be impossible for the Leader to get a story in the newspaper that is delivered on Tuesday, before any picketing happens on Monday. I have no idea what was printed in the paper (I live out of town and won't receive it until at least tomorrow).

Also, just because you don't agree with the actions of either party, doesn't mean it isn't news. The facility is a government employer. If the public isn't watching over what the government is doing, the government will proceed to break every rule in the book. In our system it is the responsibility of the people to keep an eye on what the government is up to.

Kind of surprised. The first line of this thread clearly states this item came to us from AFSCME and that we were looking for public reaction. It noted we would do a separate news story for the upcoming paper. This is not what ran in our newspaper and placement here is "on the Internet" - a Message Board, seeking differing opinions.

FYI, in case, you aren't aware and assume otherwise, we did include some of this news release in our actual newspaper coverage, but we also were in contact with the Department of Corrections and they are investigating the incidents and said employees can, indeed wear union apparel. We also attended the picketing at Lincoln Hills on Monday and will have that news coverage in the Jan. 17 Tomahawk Leader.

Again, I just tossed it out there for discussion purposes - from either or both sides.

Ummmm, errr........... I'm just trying to figure out the train of thought that equates a disgruntled employee deciding to strip his pants to a disingenuous, deceitful, actor lying to and recording a converstion with the govenor of the State of Wisconsin.

Do you realize that you are quoting an actor? I bet you could come up with some real hum-dingers if you dig deep into the orations of Borat. LOL.

First, the employee didn't decide to strip his pants. He was told to remove all clothing with a union logo by his manager. Which violated the employee handbook and the employee's first amendment rights (remember, this is a public employer).

Second, the first portion of the quotes was an actor. The second portion, and the one that played right into it, was our current governor. Who's more of an idiot, someone wearing a logo on their clothes to prove a point, or someone that admits they considered inserting THUGS into a peaceful crowd protesting? Even considering intentionally adding violence puts that person much closer to the leaders of a number of Middle Eastern countries than what I would expect from a leader in the USA.

I find it disturbing that using the telephone to con and scam someone under false pretenses would be an act condoned by anybody. I personally find that below the morals and ethics that we as a society consider acceptable. In extreeme cases it can even get you sent to prison (kind of ironic considering the story we are talking about). I suppose those who find it acceptable would have no problem with it happening to them or they're elderly family members as well. I personally don't think its ok to do to me, my family, nor any other citizen of our state, including our govenor.

Back when this amoral act occured the national media provided extensive coverage on the facts. The overwheling summary of the case was that the govenor sad nothing wrong during the scam. The govenor was scamed, plain and simple. To represent that the items discussed in the conversation were his ideas is simply wrong. He was set-up, entrapped.

At this point I don't beleive Mcallisters striptease was commited solely upon the direction of his supervisor. He's not even sure if he was sick when he went home. If he's not sure he was sick, how can he provide a creditable report of the other events that occured that day? I think I'll wait to hear the other sides account of the case, and weight the merits of each, prior to representing speculation as fact.

You're right, the phone call wasn't right and I said it was wrong when it happened. But it doesn't diminish what was said either.

You're also right, there was extensive coverage of what was said. However, no one ever said nothing wrong was said, nothing ILLEGAL was said. There is a huge difference between the two. Again, to admit even having considered the idea of placing thugs into a peaceful crowd to cause trouble shows a serious lack of morals at a minimum.

I also find it interesting that Gov. Walker was willing to take a call from someone claiming to be Mr. Koch at the same time he was refusing to take calls from union representatives, Democrats, etc.

This was bad enough“Fake David Koch”: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that—because we thought about that…but $cott Walker also joked about taking a baseball bat to the protesters!''Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That’s what I’d do.

Walker: I have one in my office; you’d be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.

So, River Rat, according to your logic... let's say the cops put out a fake child as prey to a child molester. If the child molester attempts to do some bad things to this "child", according to you that doesn't count because he was "tricked"... nice. Or, let's say I buy drugs from an undercover cop. I was "tricked" so I didn't actually mean to do it, right?

That's your defense of Walker?

He thought he was talking to Koch. So, if he would have been talking to the real Koch he would have said the same things. Walker is a piece of garbage.

"Ummmm, errr........... I'm just trying to figure out the train of thought that equates a disgruntled employee deciding to strip his pants to a disingenuous, deceitful, actor lying to and recording a converstion with the govenor of the State of Wisconsin"

Ummmm,errrr...... you had a quote in your post that represented one side of the debate and I responded with a quote from the other side.

My quote was real. I'm still not sure where you got yours from..... errrr......ummmmm...........

All of my comments have remained germane to the topic being discussed. There's no way in haties I'm going into child molesters and drug dealers. I think that's way off topic of what's being discussed here. I find the anology more than a little disturbing to tell ya the truth.

A simple, remedial google search will take you directly to the quotes previously mentioned.

You forgot to mention the fact that someone went through his office on the Thursday before the incident and removed a union sign. You also didn't mention that it is OK for them to wear union logos to work, according to the memo all employees received after the incident. You make out McAllister to be out a typical "union bad guy", when in fact it appears he was baited into a bad situation by his superiors.

As far as child molesters and drug dealers go, all I am saying is that the logic you are using to defend Walker (i.e. he was tricked into it, so he didn't mean it, and everything is OK) was allowed by our legal system as a proper defense, then there would be a lot more criminals on the street because it wouldn't count if they were tricked into doing a crime by the police.

Another example: let's say someone's wife is cheating on them with "Jim". Now let's say that the husband knows this is going on and calls his wife pretending to be "Jim" and the wife falls for the trick and admits to many things. The husband confronts her with this information, but according to you the wife would actually be the victim because she was tricked.